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i'm s.e. cupp on "the cycle" today. take two. no question of defeating republicans. he has. can he work with them? i'm toure and making you an offer you can't refuse. a look inside the president's so-called senate mafia. i'm krystal ball. we have a diamond in the rough today. an anthropologist searching for answers and now cycling back here to share the incredible experiences. i'm steve kornacki, finding out who gave me the flu. really. it's a sick new app. all that plus what kids, kesha and congress have common. we're all about making connections here on "the cycle." all right. it's just 13 days to the inauguration and if you thought president obama's first term was

polarizing, just wait for the second. for instance, his first term was polarizing despite obama's efforts. his second could be polarizing because of them. need proof? already the president's putting up his dukes nominating chuck hagel to run the pentagon. he slammed the door on debt ceiling negotiations demanding congress raise it without drama and says he's ready to be tough on gun control but remember the president doesn't have to worry about re-election ever again. so expect his second term agenda to look a lot like this. full of overtures to the base which criticized him over the last four years for caving to republicans. to help decipher what to expect in the next four years, we start with nbc's peter alexander outside of the white house and "the washington post" david nakamura. peter, look, you could describe the first term and the first few months since being re-elected as a confident obama. making bold cabinet picks.

laying out a very ambitious agenda, adding gun legislation to the docket or you could describe it as almost confident. you know, he backed away from the susan rice pick. he gave in on taxing the top income earners at the rate he wanted. and so far he's really just tiptoed kind of cautiously around gun control. so this a confident obama based on the agenda you're seeing or a caution one? >> reporter: focusing on foreign policy, i think you'd have to say this is a confident president obama right now. just consider the selections of chuck hagel, john kerry, even though it's not susan rice, but also john brennan compared to four years ago. jim jones did not work out. there was secretary gates at defense that was brought over from the bush administration before him. and so i think in many ways this sort of demonstrates that the president feels he'll put his

imprint on foreign policy going forward from him. hillary clinton a choice that some may have viewed as a concession of secretary of state and worked out well for both sides. >> david, you know, chuck hagel has gotten some opposition from the left and the right. do you expect in a second term now elected and safe obama might get some more opposition from the left, from democrats? i'm thinking maybe on drones or extra judicial killing or some of the things that maybe some liberals had been quieter on waiting for obama to get re-elected? >> i think that's definitely a big issue. you know, looking at the picks that the president announced yesterday for national security team, i think what you are seeing is obama administration sort of trying to reshape how they think about things and drawing down the war in iraq, u.s. troop presence there, i got off a white house conference call. you're looking at now a pentagon and a white house that's sort of thinking about conflict s

differently. using drones and lethal force in that way rather than full scale war, escalating in a country and a war and that will continue the criticism that the white house is secretive about the drone program. they don't talk about it and almost don't acknowledge it and clear that the president is committed to this and an issue from the left. >> david, as s.e. said, i think the left did not for most or all of president obama's first term really hold him accountable on drones the way maybe you would have expected them to do or tried to with the national security policies under george w. bush. it seem there is's a natural opportunity at least maybe to pursue some of the answers to ask some of questions that weren't asked the last four years in the hearings of john brennan as the cia director. is that something you expect will happen at all? >> i do. >> will there be some aggression of the left there? >> i think there will be. brennan is involved in the program and some of the stories today you are seeing looking and as people start to scour the records.

regardless of whether he's confirmed or not, it's part of the discussion. however, i think like i said that obama is committed to john brennan. as his sort of adviser, the president close a relationship with him and committed as you saw with the pick yesterday. >> peter, as we look forward to what is on the agenda, immigration, gun control, tax reform, maybe some election reform, big, controversial issues, when's the white house strategy for actually getting those things passed? a lot of people have thought that the coalition of the 85 or so republicans obviously not exactly the same since we have a new congress but those 85 or so republicans who voted for the fiscal cliff deal plus the majority of the democratic caucus that that is going to be the sort of magic coalition that actually gets things accomplished in this term. is that the white house strategy? >> reporter: i think you have to consider that fiscal cliff hanger as an anomaly.

people view it as such because the consequences so great. john boehner allowed a vote on that. he doesn't have to do that necessarily going forward so the strategy for the white house on those other issues, speaking specifically to gun control as we noted, vice president is going to meet this week with the nra that made news just being noted a matter of hours ago. it's to try to create more of that pressure. the president has made it very clear that not only did he win this election but said that the republicans obviously have a struggling brand, this wlous is communicated so perhaps more campaign-style events where the president was in michigan, he was in pennsylvania, he was just across the river in virginia, here as well. perhaps gabby giffords by his side or some of the survivors from newtown. i think that's some of the ways they believe to add pressure to bring across the republicans to not be an obstruction to him being able to accomplish some of those policies specifically on gun control and also trying to

use some of those democrats like a-rated democrats from the nra, joe manchin, obviously, bob casey of pennsylvania, both may be able to add to that pressure specifically as it speaks to the issue of gun control. >> david, i want to talk to you about women and not in a brent musberger sort of way but a real way. you write about the durt of women in the cabinet and susan rice and fell apart and that's not been replaced by anybody and looking at three women for 15 cabinet posts. not the diversity we would expect from obama that we would hope for from obama and it seems or a little late in the game to make up for that. so is he just going to be behind the eight ball now? >> well, you know, it is interesting because women's issues as you know is a big issue in the campaign. the president made it an issue and as did the republicans and the president trying to drive a wedge and won 55% of the women's

vote and i think he made the point, you know, he wanted women's health issues and equality in pay and same time with the departure of hillary clinton, you are looking at a national security cabinet all men and there is concern. the president to be fair to him, was in favor of susan rice it looked like. didn't work out. now you have a treasury secretary announced soon, probably jack lu and replaced by a male candidate, as well. i have heard and did write about this today. there is some frustration and this is dogged obama since the beginning of his first term when there was some friction inside the white house, you know, rumbling of senior level female staffers and the president talking about it, reassure them to have a voice with hillary clinton leaving, the question is, is he going to have that input that a lot of people think would be valuable? the president talked about other cabinet positions to fill and keeping an eye on that. >> okay. peter alexander and david

nakamura, thank you. what could be the biggest fight of the president's second term? find out as "the cycle" rolls on for tuesday, january 8th, 2013. ? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus liquid gels speeds relief to your worst cold symptoms plus has a decongestant for your stuffy nose. thanks. that's the cold truth!

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my 9-year-old daughter was murdered in the tucson shooting. i have one question for the political leaders. when will you find the courage to stand up to the gun lobby? whose child has to die next? >> second anniversary of the tucson shooting, the mother of its younger victim is featured in the new ad demanding a plan for gun control. the power of the gun lobby is in

displace after newtown. the director denied that guns are the problem. he said all we need is more guns. oh. until now, he's been fighting a weak enemy because there's no money or force of the nra. one of the group's vice president's task force will meet with this week and now rising to fight the nra and led by gabby giffords and husband mark kelly who sat down with diane sawyer. >> i have a gun. we're both gun owners. we are strong supporters of the 2nd amendment but we have to do something to keep the guns from getting in to the wrong hands. >> when it can happen to children in the classroom, it's time to say -- >> enough. >> giffords is a former legislat legislator, makes her perfectly poised to lead a new pac and new legislation from the president to sport and including background checks for every gun,

banning -- every gun buyer and magazines and making gun trafficking laws national. but will any of that pass and make a difference? let's spin. i welcome gabby giffords in to the fight because they're so decimated. there's billions of dollars to be made in gun rights and nothing to be made in gun control. i like the white house's first step and this may get watered down as we go forward but background checks and federalizing gun trafficking laws harder for criminals to acquire weapons but, you know, it is not that we want to restrict people's rights to have guns. we don't want to take people's guns away but make reasonable, responsible changes to gun ownership. look, we have a 1st amendment. you can't yell fire in a crowded theater. that's all we're talking about. talking about making people responsible for their guns. if anything happens to your gun, we license you to buy a gun, to

own a gun and if anything happens with your gun, i didn't know, you're responsible for that and maybe you have that sort of responsibility in perpetuity of the gun and then if you're nancy lanza, i have to lock this thing up so my son never gets close to it. it could make a difference in this culture. >> yeah. they could. i have to say, i mean, i don't think that there's anyone in the country better positioned to have an impact on the conversation than gabby giffords and her husband mark kelly not only because of what she's been through and also you can tell by the way they're poxing this. they're gun owners. she gets the rural gun culture, a supporter of the 2nd amendment and doesn't have that feel of to take the guns. we don't believe in the 2nd amendment so i think that framing is really important. look, in terms of political calculus, there's zero political benefit to democrats to support any sort of gun control legislation. zero. so between this group and mayor

bloomberg's group, hopefully there will start to be a counter balance on the other side and the nra probably the most powerful interest group in the country and, you know, over the short term, am i particularly optimistic that with the republican congress with democrats like including new senator heitkamp optimistic? no. over the long term a group like this shifts the political calculus and will have change over time. >> yeah. i mean, is anything going to happen in next few months? almost certainly no. because you have a republican house. if something does happen legislateively, it's so watered down it will not have any meaningful impact. i think we can say that with republicans running the house but what i thought of with that clip of giffords and kelly is jim and sarah brady and the story of 1981. the press secretary and shot in the assassination attempt on

reagan and transformed them in to gun control advocates and they were successful in that the legislation that ultimately took his name, the brady bill was the brady law but took 12 years. shooting in 1981. president clinton, there you can see signing the bill. that's 1993 when that happened. that was eight years of reagan, four years of bush senior and then in 1993 a democratic president and house and senate and the bill which had been locked up because of republican control of at least one of those -- one level of government for all of those years and then finally democrats to move it through and i just think that the reality is as long as republicans are the gun party and control either the house or the senate or the white house you won't get anything substantial through and it's when you have single-party government again and get the brady bill and except something that giffords begins to pushing for now. >> well, the problem with all quick response gun legislation that happens after some kind of

event is that it has to accomplish two things simultaneously. it has to solve a problem and it has to uphold and maintain the rights of law-abiding gun owners. it rarely does one of those let alone both of those. generally, gun control legislation that is quick response always impinges on the rights of law-abiding gun owners and rarely solves the problem. and i hate to break it to you but none of the proposals coming out of the task force so far prevent another newtown and that is tragic and even if you don't care or you want to prioritize the rights of law-abiding gun owners second, you still have to come to this problem from a position of wanting to solve it. and i don't know that any of this actually will. that's the hard part. that's the part that it's really tough to grapple with because you want to be solving the problem, making a contribution

and feel like, check, i solved it. it's not that easy. >> nothing sort of taking away the guns in america, all the civilian guns in america ensure another newtown and auroraurora. it will guarantee we will, doing nothing. can't do nothing. >> but that's a false choice. there's a false choice. >> no, but i mean, you're saying legislation, the legislation we're talking about won't help. fair enough. >> these proposals that have been floated. >> we need further -- then propose something -- >> promise you. >> don't say the legislation won't help and just stay in the status quo? >> i didn't say stay in the status quo. there are conversations to have about mental health but this is tilting at windmills. >> let's shift the frame a little bit because i don't think and i've said this before. you can't focus on one particular tragedy and say what is the law that would have prevented this? we don't know. >> right. >> what you can look at is, is this policy overall looking at gun crime and cry leviolence go

impact the impact? we need to have that looking that the because people need to have the sense going through a nasty fight with congress, that it is going to have an impact on the problem but i wouldn't frame it as this particular tragedy. i think we have the look at when's going to have an impact overall. that's all you can really do. >> what do you want to hear from congresswoman giffords continuing the recover afights to curb gun violence? gabby and her husband are perfect advocates for this. i know they'll help bring sanity and change. amen. don't forget to check out the facebook page and tell us what you're thinking. we'll be right back. michael and mia are keeping

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when i introduce you, i'm going to say, this is a friend

of mine. that means you're a connected guy. now, if i said instead this is a friend of ours, that would mean you were a maybe guy. >> all right. so maybe none of them are made men like that but the next guest says president obama's building when's referred to as his senate mafia. bringing his men to recalls in to the inner circle. just yesterday, he nominated former senator chuck hagel to head the pentagon. hagel is the very man that suggested another president's mentors joe biden for vice president back in 2008 and nominated john kerry for secretary of state. think lincoln's team of rivals with a twist. >> you'll begin your second term a semi divine stature. imagine the possibilities peace will bring. why tarnish with a battle in the house? it's a rat's nest in there. talented hicks and hack that is rejected the amendment ten months ago will lose. >> i like our chances now.

>> president's not quite starting the second term with economy divine status and battles ahead so how could the appointments shape white house policy? today is michael hirsh. >> michael, so it's not exactly team of rivals i guess with chuck hagel defense secretary and obama and hagel never really rivals. hagel is one of the allies from the other side, sort of from the beginning and wanted to ask you about the roots of the relationship. we see reporting to refer back to the 2008 trip in the campaign that they took to the middle east. i know you mentioned it in your piece a bit. can you tell us a little bit about what that trip was about, what sort of happened during it and how it sort of shaped that relationship? >> well, hagel like kerry and like biden was very much a mentor to obama. who was still, remember, a

freshman senator. this is a guy who effectively began running for president after he'd been senator for less than two years. and these -- this team are incredibly well grounded in foreign policy. i think it was a lot of advice on how to handle the middle east from hagel and biden and kerry who are more or less in agreement going back a couple of decades on some of these issues. as you alluded to in the beginning on a trip obama made with hagel to afghanistan, he actually -- that is hagel advised obama to pick joe biden as his running mate saying that a biden -- you know, just great on policy and politics and can handle congress. so i think you have the sense that this is a kind of a very close group that obama has relied on for a long time and even though he will have been president for four years, he's

going to continue to rely on and, you know, anything that sounds like an obama doctrine in the second term is a hagel, kerry, biden doctrine. >> michael, continuing the mafia movie theme we have going in this block, i think of "godfather 3," just when i thought i was out i get pulled back in. we're pulled in vietnam. that was the boogieman for decades. they didn't have the vietnam sort of memories hanging over its shoulder and invading the psyche and challenging the thought process and now when we have kerry and hagel, two guys who vietnam is part of the fabric, it seems that vietnam reintroduced back in to is psyche of the democrats. now how does this change the decision making process and just the psyche having the two vietnam guys at the top there? >> well, it's a fascinating insight, actually, because when i did a piece sometime ago on obama's fondness for covert war and stepped up drone warfare

really phenomenally, one of his close aides said to me, you know, the difference with this president is he was born too late for vietnam, not burdened with that baggage. so strikingly, what does he do? beginning of the second term picks not just one but two guys who are haunted by vietnam, by their own admission. they have talked about how the trauma of vietnam shaped their world view, in particular their restraint on the use of force which i think both men are more or less in alignment on. interestingly obama himself with traditional use of force, that is sending armies abroad, a large scale use of force is conservative and why he went in to libya putting nato first so i think you see both an interesting alignment of views there and also potentially some tension because i think, frankly, kerry and hagel are going to be much more restrained in the advice of use of force than others on the obama team and from obama himself.

>> well, michael, we should keep in mind although obama is likely to wind up with kerry, probably the first choice is susan rice for that position and likely if they're all confirmed he's going to end up with the senate mafia as you put it but how different would the foreign policy and how different would the team looked if it's susan rice in that position instead of john kerry? >> i think it could have been different along the lines of what we were talking about. i think susan rice was much more agresive about u.s. intervention. she had her own personal trauma in the past and her failure while she was on the national security council to intervene in rwanda genocide. i think it was one of the thing that is made her the leading voice in pushing the president to intervene in libya and i think the debate of sib yeah is going on and she is an aggressive voice on that, as well. while it's true that obama did not get the first choice in

susan rice, on the whole, i think his views about a very scaled down u.s. presence around the world are in alignment with kerry and hagel's and of course we saw joe biden, you know, in the middle of the debate, as well. he was arguing for a minimal rather than a larger presence in afghanistan. >> michael, you mentioned syria and with hagel everyone's eyes are on israel and iran and talk about that. going forward, what do you make of this particular team? what can you read in to the tea leaves about how this administration will deal with syria and wondering what you think about how they'll deal with al qaeda elsewhere? yemen is still a problem. al qaeda's essentially a pop-up country in northern malawi. what can you read about these guys in the next year or two object those issues? >> right. well, look. what unites i think the world views of kerry and hague sell both of them are warriors. both of them decorated vietnam

veterans but they know in a gut level way that you don't get in unless you have to because it's awfully hard to get out. once in, like in afghanistan, for example, you know, they're the ones to want to prosecute the wars and seeing on syria is continued advice against a u.s. military involvement. the president's going to hear that from them if the president decides he wants to arm the rebels or do something more, then you can hear people like kerry and hagel and probably biden, as well, saying, okay, if you do it, do it right. make sure the weaponry is sufficient. so i think it's going to be council of extreme caution but if the president decides he needs to intervene in any area, you know, the sort of warrior instincts kick in. >> all right. thank you. up next, learning from the past. author reminds us of the value of tradition. day maggie smith would be proud. >> the groom never sees the bride the night before the

weding. >> nothing ever alters for you people. evolutions erupt and the groom cannot see the bride before the wedding. >> you americans never understand the importance of tradition. [ coughs ] shh! [ coughs ] shh!

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use caution when driving or operating machinery. common side effects include nausea, trouble sleeping and unusual dreams. with chantix and with the support system it worked. it worked for me. [ male announcer ] ask your doctor if chantix is right for you. we live in a culture where people stand in line for hours for the newest ipad, young equals hot, gathering food means using a debit card at the grocery store and long journey is a plane over the country. we live with the associated conveniences but there are still cultures around the world that think an umbrella is greatest technology they have seen and look at the elderly as a gift to learn from. people that use bows and spears to hunt for daily food and for whom travel is just a few miles from home maybe. even though we can google the answer to any question, our next guest says we have a lot to

learn from the traditional societies. in his new "the world until yesterday" professor jared diamond studies tribes across the globe to look at the past to help the future. professor, first of all, great book. i'm not all the way through it yet but enjoying it. fascinating read an you talk about how we have this sort of instinct that people are basically the same wherever they live, whatever culture they come from and how that's really not true and you also tell us specifically about the kind of shock going from new guinea to l.a. so tell us a little bit about this. >> coming back from the beautiful jungle of new guinea to l.a. i'm, of course, overwhelmed by the smog, the noise and the indirect relations with people. in l.a. we communicate by text messaging, by telephone. in new guinea, relationships are always face to face and i have the full attention of the people

that i'm talking with and we're jabbering all day long. >> professor, you have quotes in the book from people who lived in new guinea and thailand and africa and other places and come to america and see the differences and a lot of people you quote are very young. one of the quote that is sort of blew my mind, american boys are macho, talk macho and beat up other kids. nice kids don't do well in the u.s. and i've certainly experienced some of that. in america. what are we doing wrong with our young boys when that's the case? >> we're in a competitive society that emphasizes individuals getting ahead. new guinea society and traditional societies in general emphasize much more sharing, working for the benefit of the whole group and an individual is not supposed to get ahead and have things that are not shared with the group. >> professor, i read one review of your book and in it he talked

about some families in new guinea who let the kids roll in to the fire to be singed a little to teach them a lesson. i like this. but i have a feeling it might be a loon among western audiences. what kinds of lessons have, you know, you tried to bring over here that are just rejected, not going to happen? we've moved past this, not going to happen. >> my wife and i certainly thought of the experience and bringing up our own two sons. traditional societies emphasize letting children make their own choices. we did not go so far as letting our children play when young with knives or roll in to fires. >> that's too bad. >> at age 3 one of my sons fell in love with snakes and said, all right, if he wants snakes, let him have snakes. not big or poisonous snakes and built up to 147 pet snakes, frogs, reptiles and then got beyond it and became a gourmet cook and used to the fact he was

going to make the life's choices. >> steve, i'm very nervous of you becoming a parent. >> i err on the side of all snakes are poisonous. i don't know if i'm comfortable with 147 nonpoisonous snakes but, jared, another lesson potentially to learn that maybe wouldn't be controversial and that it's a big difference i guess between how we live and traditional societies is mentioned earlier, respect for the elderly. can you talk a little bit about how the older generation is treated in traditional societies compared to what we do over here? >> traditional societies value their elderly because they don't have books and they don't have google so that the repository of information is the memories of old people. and our society, old people have lost that particular value because we look things up, we don't require old people for that. but nevertheless, old people remain important today because of their experience of conditions that have happened in the past and that are not common

nowadays. they can give advice free of their own egos but the status of old people is a disaster area of american society and struggling to keep our old people satisfied, connected and not lonely. >> another area is conflict resolution in traditional societies and there's a concept there that everybody knows each other so they're going to have to come some sort of resolution where everyone can get along in the end. any sort of lessons that our congress should maybe take from the societies? >> there's a lesson that our court system that we ourselves can take away. the emphasis in the american court system is on right and wrong, punishing. not at all on restoring comfortable relationships and tragic for anyone in a divorce dispute or a custody dispute or in an inheritance dispute. traditional societies the emphasis is on restoring a

relationship between people who will have to deal with each other for the rest of their lives and not on determining right or wrong. >> partly to that point, i see going to africa there's communal societies and you might have dinner in anybody's house and other parents can tell other kids what to do and not to do and call them aunt and uncle and the village raises the children. in america, you raise your children and don't say anything to anybody else's children. we should probably take a page for them on that one, don't you think? >> that's true. the other adults that one thinks of as aunts and uncles is more role models. in my experience and the experience of most visitors to new guinea and africa and is the kids more socially skilled, precocious at 5 or 10 and deal with adults and negotiate with adults. we would like our own kids to be independent and self confident and how can they become that way

when we my ro manage our own children? >> professor, i made the masters work on religion and i looked at traditional societies. what lessons did you learn about the role of spirituality in the societies we might be missing? >> religion has different functions in traditional societies. from the function that it functions that it has in modern society. traditional societies use religion a lot more explanation, now science provided the explanations of why there's tides and why the sun seems to go across the sky. so there's a function of religion that has become lost with time. religion still has its function of offering comfort, of helping deal with anxiety. religion used to have a function of teaching us to obey the king or obey the president. the reasons that we obey the president today are not because of religion but because of the rule of law. >> interesting. professor jared diamond, thank you so much for all of that. >> you are welcome. and up next, coughing,

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company and as you may know, there are a whole lot of folks who have been pretty miserable right now awith the flu. the cdc reporting higher than normal flu activity and widespread in 41 states including here in new york. in case that doesn't gross you out enough, 70% to 80% of the coughs you hear around you could be from the flu. 70% to 80%. >> s.e. >> one thing to make you feel better, knowing who to blame. brian, our producer here and who i blame for my latest and second bout with the flu this season, i'm -- >> he gave it to you. >> 70% to 80% sure he gave it to me. >> i'm 100%. >> get nate silver to weigh in on that. >> we have an app for that. help my friend gave me the flu -- help, my friend gave me the flu -- >> right. >> calling you any minute. >> the name of the app. they will have help trace who

among your facebook friends posted about the sniffy and stuffy feeling and if you don't want to be a suspect, don't post you have the flu and then transmit it at will. >> very scientific. >> otherwise this is a flawless app. my search came back empty but i have a flu so maybe that's different. not different. >> now you tell us this. we are stuck at the table with you for 48 minutes. >> i'm hiding it pretty well. walking around and shuffle around moaning and saying kill me. >> you're always moaning. >> it's true. yeah, right. >> you have not had it easy. you have had a tough time. wouldn't you feel better to know where you got this? >> of course. no but -- >> you always think you're sick. >> i'm not an alarmist. there's a difference. i only worry about -- when i have the flu, not only absolutely misery inducing and with the flu there's the chance that the temperature could get out of control, spread to your

brain, inflammation and die. >> everybody worries about this. >> i have chronic sinus issues. if it interacts with that, there's that issue. >> anything else? >> you always -- here's the other question to ask yourself. is it the flu or is it spinal meningit meningitis? >> that's right. >> i hate to ruin this with facts but i want our viewers to know that the cdc says the flu outbreak in 2013, the worst in a decade. it's already up 250% in the state of new york. >> can i tell you one thing? >> rockefeller center is the epicenter. everyone -- >> we have all had it. >> what i have learned since starting the show, we work in a very large office building and you're just -- anything that comes in, circulated throughout the ducts, the food from the cafeteria. >> all right. calm down. >> just not. >> one thing to keep in mind -- >> i have had 14 illnesses since i have been here. >> but the flu is not the only thing we need to worry about especially with children, all sorts of things come in to your

life all the time. and in fact, i can see something moving in your hair right now. >> stop. >> you're not telling the truth. and lice free. i'm not sure. >> i want my own independent analysis. >> she wasn't back in school last week and the woman, a friend of ours that watched her called me last night and said i wanted to let you know the children she's a teacher and two of the children in the class have lice. i'm going to get checked for it. you need to check ella. of course i get totally freaked out. i do like a quick check and i immediately see two things that i identify as lice. >> see? see? told you. >> i put her to bed. i strip the whole house. fumigating everything is in the laundry machine. >> your head? >> the stuffed machine. >> it was clean. >> how do you check your own

head? >> i have a husband. that's what he's there for. >> turn the camera. he is right there! >> did you check him? >> there's a happy ending to the story. i'm up like late putting the stuffed animals in plastic bags. et cetera. there he is right there. that's my husband, everyone. that's jonathan. his friend michael. anyway, the story is going somewhere. so anyway -- >> some day. >> this morning i wake up and ella was going to go get a lice treatment, whatever. let me check one more time. i can't find anything, nothing. i take her in to school. we had this, but i can't find anything. they were like, we literally had the lice checker in the school yesterday and checked ella and she is totally clear. >> clean. >> you are completely -- they double checked her today. totally clear. >> our house is lice free and exceptionally clean now. >> i want to check an opinion. i can see something going on up there. >> stop, stop. you're imagining the way i did. >> i was a kid and i had lice at

like 6 or whatever and my mom bagged up the dolls. >> yeah. >> it was traumatic. i remember. like am i going to get them back? where are you taking them? >> by the way -- >> you may remember on friday i lost a bet to toure and wearing the hat. speaking of -- >> speaking of communicable diseases. >> your hair looking better since then. >> the lice of the hat, carrying the flu. i think that was -- anyway -- >> meningitis. that's where you got it. >> the lice had it. i will never know. >> fumigating. >> a facebook app to find the lice with the meningitis. >> to make the most awkward transition i wanted to carve out a few seconds and i'm going to use it now to talk about something else that's in the news today and someone else in the news today. unfortunately, who passed away last night and that's richard ben cramer and watching this channel today and online today, if you've heard of him, you

know. if you didn't, you've probably heard the basic story today. he was a terrific, great writer. wrote about baseball a little bit but the seminole work is politics. sort of about the 1988 campaign and really about six of the candidates that ran that year. it was their life story and more than that. it was an amazing book. you want to understand the people who run for president. whether it's 1988 or ever, this is the book to read. just absolutely amazing and a campaign today in his memory. a great idea. the book in 1992 was not a huge hit but go on amazon if you have never read it before. buy it today. try to make it number one for a day and we'll be back with one more segment after this. need for protein increases, yet many of us don't meet our daily protein needs? that's why there's boost® high protein nutritional drink. each delicious serving provides fifteen grams of protein to help maintain muscle and help meet expert recommended

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when i was a kid aside from the desire to one day meet donny wallberg, i was predominantly motivated by one emotion, fear. whether it was thanks to my overprotective parents, the domineering catholic school nuns, or every special "different strokes" episode, i was afraid of everything. if i got bad grades, i'd end up homeless. if i crossed the street i would end up mutilated in an alley. if i stayed out too late i'd fall in a well. in any scenario in which i did the wrong thing, the result in my head was always the same thing, homeless, dead, stuck in a well. that overwhelming sense of fear was actually a pretty healthy thing. it trained me to think about consequences. if only to avoid ending up homeless, dead, or stuck in a well. but kids these days don't seem to have the same hangups.

exhibit a, sexting. in fact, kids today think they're pretty awesome. a new study at the american freshman survey find there's been a dramatic rise over the last four decades in the number of teenagers who describe themselves as being above average in areas like academics, drive, and self-confidence. the study found by many different measurements kid today as not as awesome as they used to be. if you don't believe me, just go a kesha concert. it's not just parents boosting their egos, lowering their standards, it's also our political culture. when fail to pay our debts, balance or budget, is it any wonder kids these days have a warped sense of accountability and a delusional view of reality? kids don't fear consequences because there are none. i'm not the only one that's nod.